daily java

Daily Java:

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” (Revelation 14:13)

I remember reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs as a young man. The stories, at times, verged on horrible. Many times, those who had died for Jesus died painful deaths. There were periods in which being a Christian was a dangerous thing.

It is that way again today in many of the Muslim countries. Islam demands conformity and if you are not Muslim, you are automatically guilty of heresy. Since many of the Islamic countries are run as a religious government, that charge of heresy carries the death penalty.

We have it so easily in America that we forget the rest of the world. even though there is a war on Christianity, at the same time, we really do not have much trouble worshiping as we please. Sure, we have trouble at Christians with the fools who try each year to kill the national celebration. But even so, we live in a blessed situation. We can boldly walk into a church, we can write on our blogs and in our letters about our faith, we can tell others about it and even wear Christian symbols if we wish.

A great big batch of the world cannot do that under penalty of death.

And it has always been that way.

In the early church, the Bible records Stephen as being the first martyr to the Christian faith in Acts 6. It is interesting to see that the Jews of the first century had much the same mindset as the Muslims of the twenty-first century: our way or the highway. Do it like we say or die.

I suppose the only difference was that the Jews of the first century were not bent on converting the world. they spent their time on internal purity. Muslims today want to forcibly convert the world. to Islam.

But, even so, if you were a Jew in the first century and you became a Christian, you were in trouble. Not only that but later on the emperor Nero decided to make Christians the nation Roman scapegoat. He would kill them by the hundreds and use their bodies as torches for his parties.

It would be hard to be a boldly professing Christian in such a situation.

James came next in Acts 12. James was an odd martyr. He was one of the Twelve, the inner circle of Jesus’ followers. Why God allowed him to die is sometimes beyond me. he needed all his apostles, yet James was martyred.

But even so, he died, and a lot of others died throughout the first centuries and all the centuries following. Sometimes the deaths were by other Christians over internal disputes. In the fourteenth century AD, John Wycliffe, called the “Morning Star of the Reformation” was burned at the stake for having the temerity to translate the Bible into English. In the next century, Martin Luther was condemned for the same and for preaching against the excesses of the established church.

All though Christianity today, people try their level best to bend others into their way of thinking, even going so far as character assassination and vicious condemnation. All because of theological disagreements.

How does God feel? He says that those who die for him, or those who suffer in his name – even if by others who also bear his name – are precious to him.

He sees it. He doesn’t stop it, which it seems he would, but at the same time, he sees it. And those who die for him can know that they are precious to him